


rosemary, for remembrance

by gingersprite



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fix-It, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, Internalized Homophobia, Love Confessions, Multi, Panic Attacks, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-05-02 09:51:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19196467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingersprite/pseuds/gingersprite
Summary: Sansa’s first act as queen was to have a proper statue built in Robb’s memory; seeing it brings up unexpected feelings for both her and Theon.





	rosemary, for remembrance

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up: there is a very, very brief reference to book-canon molestation. The perpetrator is a character we all hate, and it's hella non specific. Please just be aware of that before you continue!

Theon didn’t think the statue looked much like Robb. It wasn’t a bad statue, per se; the sculptor did fine work. It might have an approximation of his features, with the shape of his jaw, and his slightly pouty lower lip. But it’s nothing in comparison to Theon’s memories of Robb, which in the years since his death have only solidified. Reek could never bring himself to think of Robb, to soil his beauty by daring to claim some ownership over it. But in the years since, Theon had fought hard to unearth those buried memories, carefully restoring them.

Yara would have said he was purposely torturing himself. Theon would have said that was the point. But they didn’t talk about Robb: no one does. Somehow it makes his physical absence even worse.

The urge to imagine Robb always ringed with gold was powerful, but Theon fought that too. Robb had been beautiful, it’s true, the most beautiful boy Theon had ever seen. But he was also ferocious, and capable of great violence; the savage rage he had displayed following news of his father’s murder and sisters’ captivity had been a sight to behold. Truly he was the blood of Winterfell, a wolf through and through, despite his Tully coloring.

Perhaps that was the statue’s problem, it’s lack of color: like all of the crypt statues, it was carved of simple grey stone, nothing overly ostentatious. Even his carved clothes were understated, with no crown to signify his status. The sculptor had suggested one, when Sansa had first commissioned it, but Theon had argued against it. 

_Him_ , actually argue; he never did that anymore, never spoke out of turn, but this was too important to stay silent on. Robb had been a war-time king, elected and coronated without much ceremony. He never wore a crown in life, and it would be wrong to make him wear one in death. Sansa had agreed with Theon, and the sculptor had obliged, despite seeming confused about his insistence. Robb didn’t need a crown: the statue of Grey Wind at his feet and the sword across his lap were enough to make his status clear.

Even so, an inscription had been included, a lengthier one than accompanied all the other crypt statues. Sansa must have requested it later, as this moment was the first time Theon knew of it.

_Robb Stark, first of his name, the King in the North_

_Son and Brother, Husband to Talisa Maegyr, Father to their child_

_The Young Wolf_

“I know it’s a bit unusual, but it felt wrong not to include them, somehow.” Sansa said. She was standing by the entranceway, watching him. Theon wasn’t sure how long she’d been there, but he didn’t think it had been for long; she must have seen him entering the crypts and waited before coming down herself, giving him some privacy. He also doubted she’d want to stay here longer than absolutely necessary, not after seeing her dead forefathers rise against her.

While Sansa had announced that the statue would be built as part of the rebuilding effort, the actual installation of the piece had been done without fanfare. It wasn’t something she wanted celebrated. 

Theon turned to look at her, silhouetted by the weak winter daylight that leaked down the steps, but didn’t allow his gaze to linger there, returning it back to the inscription. Sansa didn’t move either, but it was clear from her posture that she had more to say. 

“I don’t know what they do in Volantis, if anything; I don’t want to violate their practices. I know she was only a Stark by marriage, and that normally our funeral customs wouldn’t apply to her,” Sansa continued on. “But he loved her. It just didn’t seem right to let her memory fade away, such as it was.” Theon hummed, knowing that she expected a response but unsure of what to say. He never met Talisa Maegyr, hadn’t even known Robb had wed until after his death. 

“What do you suppose she was like?” he ventured after a moment. 

“They said she was a nurse, so she must have been caring,” Sansa said thoughtfully. “I suppose she was also intelligent, and brave, for him to fall in love with her.” 

“Bet she argued like a champ; he always liked that in a woman,” Theon offered up, to which Sansa gave a small laugh. 

Neither one of them had said Robb’s name yet in this entire conversation. Just thinking it was a physical pain in his chest. 

“Please don’t stand there on my account,” Theon spoke up. “You can come closer, if you want. I’m not about to break down, or something.” His statement seemed to shock her. 

“I…” she hesitated, then took the smallest of steps towards him. “It’s not you, Theon. I just don’t like looking at it.” ‘It’, not him. Sansa must not have thought it looked too much like Robb either. 

“That sculptor didn’t get it quite right, huh?” Theon said, then made a caveat. “Not his fault, he did alright. It’s just not-” 

“It’s not Robb.” Sansa finished for him. There it was, finally; his name hung frozen in the air around them, but at least it was there. 

“Yeah,” Theon shuffled awkwardly, looking into the statue’s empty stone eyes as if waiting for them to stare back. “I keep expecting his expression to change. To look disappointed in me, or something.” 

“He wouldn’t be,” she assured him. “Not now, after everything.” 

“You don’t know that,” he responded, his tone just south of agitated. “You don’t know what he would feel, because he’s dead. He died thinking me capable of killing Bran and Rickon.” 

Sansa had been in the process of moving closer to him, but now she stopped, surprised. Theon never spoke like that anymore, especially not to her. She decided that she didn’t like being spoken to that way, but that she’d endure it if it meant he was regaining some spark of the tumultuous, passionate boy he had been. 

“And where was I, when he died?” continued Theon; then he laughed, the sound having more in common with grinding glass than a human voice. “They butchered him, and where was I? I should have died with him.” 

His words were like a knife to the gut, running her through; _was this what he felt when the Night King speared him_ , the thought drifted briefly across her mind, her other senses gone fuzzy. 

_‘I should have died with him.’_

Before she knew it, her feet had become unstuck from the ground and she was moving into his space, grabbing his arm and forcing him to face her. He flinched at her touch; Sansa would have felt guilty for triggering him, except every fiber of her being was focused on containing the burst of rage that had suddenly welled up inside her. 

_‘I should have died with him.’_

“Don’t you dare say that, Theon Greyjoy, don’t you _dare,_ ” she hissed, her clenched teeth a dam to keep the anger back. “You think I didn’t feel that way too, when I heard the news? He was the only thing that kept me going, knowing that he was coming for me; that he’d tear down the Red Keep stone by stone to save me. I dreamt he would, night after night; he’d lay Joffrey’s head at my feet, and he and Mother would hold me, and we’d find Arya, and we’d all go _home._ ” Tears pricked her eyes and despite her best efforts they began to overflow. Theon’s expression grew more and more horrified, clearly at a loss for what to say to calm her. 

“They put on a fucking play; did you know that? After everything they’d already taken from me, they took my right to mourn him in peace and made my grief a spectacle for their own amusement. So, don’t you _dare_ say you should have died with him. The dead don’t need you: I do.” 

The hand she’d grabbed him with had started shaking at some point during this tirade; when, she couldn’t say. He was frozen, like a startled rabbit staring down the jaws of a wolf. Some part of him recognized that she was fighting hard not to yell at him, that she cared for him despite her anger, but the urge to confess had been beaten and burned and cut into him and he couldn’t fight it any longer. 

“I loved him,” he whispered timidly, almost hoping she wouldn’t hear him. Rather than calm her, his words only seemed to make her angrier. 

“And you think I didn’t?” she started, her voice sharp as a dagger’s edge. 

“I know you did, Sansa, of course you did,” he explained, catching her free hand in his own in a surprising moment of bravery. “But I loved him.” Comprehension seemed to dawn on her face, but now that he’d started he had to finish. She had to know _what_ he was. 

“From the moment I first saw him, when your father brought me here; I loved him, more than anyone. Maybe… maybe more than as a brother.” His vision faded out, his mind attempting to spare him the terror at seeing her reaction. The words continued to tumble out of his mouth, almost faster than his lips could shape them. He had to find some way to make her understand. 

“It’s wrong, I know. But he was the only thing that kept me going when I came here, as a boy, he was the most important person in my life, and that feeling only grew as we did. Everything in my life revolved around him. He was like the sun, the way I was drawn to him. I’d have done anything to please him. I-I know I shouldn’t-” 

“Margaery.” Sansa’s voice brought his spiraling thoughts to a halt. 

“What?” he stammered. 

“Margaery, the Tyrell Rose,” Sansa explained. A furious pink had risen in her cheeks, and while she still trembled it now seemed to be from nerves rather than anger. “I think, I might have felt the same, about her. For so long, in King’s Landing, I never had any kindness… and then she came along, and I felt hope. She was so clever, far more than she ever let anyone else know; I was rather in awe of her, her beauty and her wit. I didn’t always trust her intentions, but her kindness was real. I think…” her voice faded into a whisper, just like his confession. “I think I loved her, or I could have come to, in another time and place.” 

“Oh.” 

“ _Oh?_ Is that all you can say?” 

Theon didn’t know what else to say. He’d been expecting disgust, or outrage; he’d never imagined that Sansa Stark, the perfect image of nobility that she was, would have a similar confession to make. She was the only person he’d every admitted this to, willingly; Ramsay had figured it out, like he figured out everything, and had used it to taunt him. 

_‘Theon Greyjoy might have loved Robb Stark, but you aren’t Theon, are you, Reek? And Reek only loves one person, don’t you, pet?’_

Suddenly he was gripped by a terrible certainty that the stone Robb had come to life, by some fiendish power, and now that he’d heard everything, knew the true depths of Theon’s perversion, he’d hate him even more. Theon couldn’t tear his eyes away from Sansa, but he knew that if he did he’d see Robb, in the flesh, his Tully blue eyes filled with disgust for this miserable creature who’d tricked him into friendship. 

“No,” Theon gasped, his grip in Sansa’s floundering. “No, I- I need to leave, I can’t be here!” 

Now familiar with these episodes, and having suffered a few herself, Sansa ushered him away from Robb’s statue, up the crypt stairs, out into the living world. He stumbled, his bad foot nearly giving way beneath him, but Sansa flung his arm over her shoulders and gripped his waist. She urged them both forward, and he let himself be led, allowing his desperate attempts to calm his breathing to overwhelm all other thought. 

Sansa directed him across the courtyard, guiding him around obstacles he was insensate to. It was only once she settled them both on a stone bench that he began to take note of their surroundings. She’d taken them to the glass gardens, safe from prying eyes. She held his hands between her own, a warmth he could feel even through his gloves, and stayed quiet as he shook and panted and muttered, until the panic receded and he came back to his body. When he met her gaze, all he saw was kindness, and understanding. 

“It’s alright, Theon,” she reassured him, punctuating this with a light squeeze of his hands. “Do you want to talk about this more? We don’t have to, but we can.” 

“Why are you acting so fine about this?” he asked. “It’s disgusting, don’t your Seven say so?” 

“I stopped putting much stock in the Seven some time ago,” she responded dryly. “And truly, why should they care? With all the evil we’ve seen in this world, the monsters in human guise, why would the gods pay any mind to this? I’m tired of the shame and judgement, we’ve had enough of it to last a lifetime.” 

Theon shook his head sadly, thinking to himself that perhaps a fragment of that naïve little girl still lived inside Sansa, and here she was acting out. 

“It’s different with women. You and Margaery, that’s fine. Yara has a woman in every port from here to Essos. But, me? No, it’s wrong, shameful.” He sat there a moment, expecting her to say some more of those silly platitudes, but thankfully she was silent. A thought occurred to him suddenly, and he barked a miserable laugh at it. “It must run in my family.” 

“You just said, with Yara…?” she trailed off. 

“No, I meant my uncle. Euron,” he clarified, though the act of even speaking the dreaded name made shivers run down his spine. “He would… touch my other uncles, when they were boys. Hurt them. I think he did the same to my brothers too: they were vicious shits, but he terrified them. My mother kept me away from him, but the way he would look at me sometimes…” 

Sansa looked ill, and he felt a vague hint of satisfaction; now she understood, how he’d been doomed even before Ramsay got his claws into him. 

“Theon no, that’s not the same,” said Sansa. “That’s a level of vileness I didn’t know Euron possessed, but that’s different. What you felt for Robb wasn’t like that, it was innocent.” 

It wasn’t much, but her assurances inspired the start of hope within him. Sansa, the most good, pure person he knew, didn’t think his affection wrong, even knowing about his uncle. She’d even felt it safe to open up to him about her own feelings towards another woman, something he definitely hadn’t seen coming. 

“And before you say it, because I know you’re still thinking it, Robb wouldn’t have hated you,” she continued. “It wasn’t in his nature to hate, not for something like this. You were his best friend; you’re our family.” 

Sansa was right, and not even Theon could twist the facts out of shape. Kindness had been intrinsic to Robb’s character, as part of him as the red of his hair; it was that same kindness that led him to treat his bastard brother with the same love he would a trueborn, to show equal attention to his wildly different sisters and their interests. To welcome the strange new boy like a long-lost brother, and share his toys, his time, and his home. 

“I used to wish-” he hesitated, unsure why he even bothered telling her this, but Sansa spurred him on with an encouraging nod. “I used to wish your father would marry us.” 

Sansa was at a loss for words now; today truly seemed to be a day for unexpected revelations. 

“It wasn’t because I loved you then,” Theon admitted bluntly. This was definitely true: as children the two of them wanted nothing to do with each other, and could only agree on their disdain for Jon and their adoration of Robb. “I thought if he did, then I could truly be a Stark, and his son. It was selfish, a child’s whim.” 

Unexpectedly, Sansa laughed. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I promise I’m not laughing at you,” she said sheepishly. “I was just imagining what my reaction would have been to such a match; I would’ve been a proper brat about it, I’m certain.” That coaxed the beginnings of a smile to Theon’s face. 

“I was hardly the prince you’d dreamed of marrying,” he agreed. “Like I said, it was just a silly dream.” 

“As were most of mine,” she pointed out. “We were children, after all.” 

“Yes, that we were.” He let the smile grow, just a little bit. He suddenly became aware again of the warmth of her hands, and how it seemed to spread to his, flooding up his arms and into his face. Feeling just a tad daring, he squeezed her hands just as she had done his earlier. Her gaze flew to their joined hands, as if she’d only just remembered holding them. 

“Theon,” she ventured, a blush rising in her cheeks. “You said you didn’t love me ‘then’.” His breath stalled; had he really let that slip so easily? 

“What did you mean by that, Theon?” Sansa’s voice had dropped nearly to a whisper. 

“You know what I meant, my lady.” He deflected, falling back behind titles as a shield. She wasn’t deterred, though; and whereas when he’d been panicking his senses had fled, now they seemed heightened. Her eyes were impossibly blue, and so big they took up his whole field of vision. 

“That night before the battle with the dead, you seemed like you wanted to kiss me.” A part of Sansa angrily told her to stop this questioning, that this was just as foolish a wish as Theon’s had been as a boy. She firmly stamped that part down. 

“I did.” He admitted, and suddenly she could breathe again; when had she stopped? 

“Then why didn’t you?” 

“I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to do that and then leave you.” 

At some point they’d closed the small gap between them on the bench; now their knees were pressed together, their legs tangled up in her skirts. Sansa took a breath, the same air that Theon breathed, and asked him a question she was almost certain she knew the answer to. 

“Do you want to kiss me now?” 

“I-I,” he stammered out awkwardly. “I shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be right.” This clearly wasn’t getting through to him. She’d have to try a different approach. 

“Theon,” she started off, patient as could be. “I used to think the saddest thing was a love lost. Now I wonder if it isn’t a love that might have been, but never was. Cut short by time and circumstance, society and cowardice.” His brow crinkled, confused at where she was going with this. 

“I don’t want this to be a might-have-been, and I don’t think you do either. We both deserve the chance for more than that. So,” she squared her shoulders, settling into the queenly demeanor she’d become accustomed to. “Do you want to kiss me now? Because I’d very much like to kiss you.” 

That shade of a smile, timid as a fledgling, finally gained the strength to spread into a true, happy smile. 

“Absolutely,” he breathed, and closed the distance.

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise- they're both bi, happy Pride!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at gingersprites, hit me up there for more of my bullshit.


End file.
